1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of wireless communication technologies and more particularly to a carrier aggregation testing method and apparatus for a wireless communication system.
2. Description of the Related Art
In wireless communication networks, e.g. according to the technical specifications of the Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP), the concept of carrier aggregation (CA) wherein several component carriers (CC) operating in different frequency channels and being bundled in a single radio link, has been introduced.
Examples of carrier aggregation are contiguous carrier aggregation, in which the constellation consists of two or more adjacent component carriers, non contiguous intra-band carrier aggregation, in which the constellation consists of two or more non-adjacent component carriers from the same frequency band or spectrum, and inter-band carrier aggregation or spectrum aggregation, in which the constellation consists of two or more component carriers from at least two different frequency bands or spectra.
In order to improve the reliability of carrier aggregation in wireless communication networks, carrier aggregation testing of User Equipments (UE) involving more than one component carriers is performed.
Particularly, in order to perform the carrier aggregation testing, a carrier aggregation testing apparatus acting as a base station (BS) is used. For simulating all component carriers, the carrier aggregation testing apparatus needs to dimension and provide hardware and/or software resources, in accordance with the carrier aggregation tests to be performed.
However, there are carrier aggregation tests that require the presence of an increased amount of hardware and/or software resources in the carrier aggregation testing apparatus and thus, the complexity of the latter is significantly increased. Furthermore, such hardware and/or software resources are expensive and accordingly the cost of the carrier aggregation testing apparatus is high.